Live data from Hacker News

Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

goldmansachs.com

81–90 of 130 posts

Re: Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

#81
post #67
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Range is kinda irrelevant if you live in a place where filling stations are ubiquitous. Going 850 km in my old petrol-powered car required just one five-minute stop.

850 km without breaks?

That's Perth to Carnarvon up the coast road in Western Australia, roughly 8 hours @ 110 km/hr speed limit and one leg of a longer trip from (say) Perth to Broome.

Re: Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

#82

I've been calling this shot for years. The cost optimization runway for EVs is much longer than for gas cars. Their adoption will eventually be a pure numbers game as new electric becomes cost competitive with used gas. That's how the pragmatic adoption will happen. You don't need, for instance, catalytic converters or a bunch of other expensive, low tolerance parts and since the fuel storage is electricity, new chem…

Yes, about 2000 moving parts in a combustion engine compared to 20 in an electric motor. The only reason ICE cars are comparable in price is the 100 years of supply chain competition. EVs will win, but gas and diesel will persist for a long time in niches (enthusiasts, long-haul towing).

More rural places without electrification are the big long term use until renewable tech becomes better and significantly cheaper.

In the future there will be off-grid unmanned free standing windmill or solar installations with a car charger hooked up to it. People will put such public chargers on their vacant land, say in the desert, for passive income, profit sharing with the installer.

Their storage capacity, price and availability will be broadcast by cellular and be part of the realtime routing decision of the vehicle who will be able to reserve a time slot.

Whenever such free standing charging station businesses becomes viable, that's when gasolines cars will be in their final decline. Might be 40 years, might be 10.

Re: Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully they are often better. 95% of new car sales are EVs in my area. It took a few years to get there, people don't necessarily know immediately what they like best. https://elbilstatistikk.no/

Norway is an absolute outlier, driven exclusively by tax incentives. In the rest of the EEA, EVs sales are plummeting. https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...

Do you have a source about “exclusively“?

Re: Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Battery swapping stations looks a lot more expensive and failure prone compared to fast chargers. I think 250kW flat charging curves are almost as convenient. Go to pee and scroll HN for one minute and voilà.

That may be, but BYD has made it work reliably and enables you to do battery-as-a-service which actually makes a lot of sense for EVs, since that's usually the lifetime limitation. Second hand EVs become actually viable that way. Plus, fast charging wears out the battery sooner, reducing car lifetime even further. Not very cashmoney from an ecological nor an actual cash money perspective. If you're gonna spend 2x the…

Renault also did battery as a service a decade ago, with some battery swaps. The maths didn't work at the time but maybe BYD and NIO will this time.

Agree that fast charging wears the battery more, but it's mostly fine. Cars are built to be used and it's better to fast charge current gen batteries when you need it than waiting for better technology while driving an ICE car.

Re: Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

#85
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everywhere is massive and spread out like US. In Ireland I can basically get anywhere in the whole country with one charge and maybe a top-up along the way. I'm more than happy with my 400km range.

I'm also in Ireland and while 400km might get you anywhere in the country, it won't get you home. Fast charging here is more expensive than petrol (over twice as much per km in many cases), the charging infrastructure is not reliable, and it's very easily overwhelmed. After the All Ireland semi-final this year, there were multi-hour queues for fast chargers on the M7. Multi-minute queues for petrol. This is reflected…

I remember when the major advantage of EVs were “you won’t pay for gas anymore.” And now it switched to “well, it’s 10% cheaper than gas but the car itself is 3 times more expensive.”

I don’t understand how they expect poor people to buy these massively.

Re: Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

#86
post #80

I've been calling this shot for years. The cost optimization runway for EVs is much longer than for gas cars. Their adoption will eventually be a pure numbers game as new electric becomes cost competitive with used gas. That's how the pragmatic adoption will happen. You don't need, for instance, catalytic converters or a bunch of other expensive, low tolerance parts and since the fuel storage is electricity, new chem…

Are you saying a new EV will ever be cost competitive with a used gas car? If so, I disagree, unless heavy penalties are imposed on using an ICE.

There's already sub $10,000 conventional form factor EVs such as https://electrek.co/2024/03/06/byd-launches-cheaper-seagull-...

And then there's the immensely popular $4,000 Wuling Hongguang Mini EV https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV

Meanwhile the average used car in the USA is $25,000 https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/buying-a-car/when-to-bu...

So this is already a reality, we're just living in the time of the disruptive arbitrage interregnum.

Re: Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

#87

I've been calling this shot for years. The cost optimization runway for EVs is much longer than for gas cars. Their adoption will eventually be a pure numbers game as new electric becomes cost competitive with used gas. That's how the pragmatic adoption will happen. You don't need, for instance, catalytic converters or a bunch of other expensive, low tolerance parts and since the fuel storage is electricity, new chem…

Yes, about 2000 moving parts in a combustion engine compared to 20 in an electric motor. The only reason ICE cars are comparable in price is the 100 years of supply chain competition. EVs will win, but gas and diesel will persist for a long time in niches (enthusiasts, long-haul towing).

But you can replace any of those 2000 moving parts with same one from eBay. You can either make your own if you know how. You can't change DRM locked part unless it is a new one and installed by approved technician using approved software for installation. Have you been naughty boy? No parts for you.

This will work against all new cars in general.

Re: Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, about 2000 moving parts in a combustion engine compared to 20 in an electric motor. The only reason ICE cars are comparable in price is the 100 years of supply chain competition. EVs will win, but gas and diesel will persist for a long time in niches (enthusiasts, long-haul towing).

But you can replace any of those 2000 moving parts with same one from eBay. You can either make your own if you know how. You can't change DRM locked part unless it is a new one and installed by approved technician using approved software for installation. Have you been naughty boy? No parts for you. This will work against all new cars in general.

Companies not respecting consumer rights isn't an inherent property of having an electric drivetrain.

That's a right to repair argument, which is a different issue.

There will likely be consumer protection laws and maybe even an "Open Car" project in the same way there's open hardware today.

Are you implying a covetous car manufacturer won't be as protective with their gasoline vehicle line?

Re: Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can replace any of those 2000 moving parts with same one from eBay. You can either make your own if you know how. You can't change DRM locked part unless it is a new one and installed by approved technician using approved software for installation. Have you been naughty boy? No parts for you. This will work against all new cars in general.

Companies not respecting consumer rights isn't an inherent property of having an electric drivetrain. That's a right to repair argument, which is a different issue. There will likely be consumer protection laws and maybe even an "Open Car" project in the same way there's open hardware today. Are you implying a covetous car manufacturer won't be as protective with their gasoline vehicle line?

> Companies not respecting consumer rights isn't an inherent property of having an electric drivetrain.

But it is so much easier. How car will tell that mechanical part has been changed? It can't.

Re: Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies not respecting consumer rights isn't an inherent property of having an electric drivetrain. That's a right to repair argument, which is a different issue. There will likely be consumer protection laws and maybe even an "Open Car" project in the same way there's open hardware today. Are you implying a covetous car manufacturer won't be as protective with their gasoline vehicle line?

> Companies not respecting consumer rights isn't an inherent property of having an electric drivetrain. But it is so much easier. How car will tell that mechanical part has been changed? It can't.

Ok name an EV part you can be a DRM asshole with and tell me the mechanism by which you're enforcing the DRM and I'll bet it's equally enforceable with a similar mechanism on the gas vehicle.
Post reply on HN